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Monday, 23 July 2018

'The Times' describes Leave votes as:- “Xenophobic Insurgents”!

The Times Political Editor describes
Leave votes as:- “Xenophobic Insurgents”!

I couldn’t let Francis Elliott, the
Times Political Editor, get away with outrageously describing Leave voters as “Xenophobic
Insurgents” without responding.

Here is my letter to him:-

Dear Mr Elliott

Re: Times Article, July 18th:-
“Tory turmoil could lead to Far-Right revival”

With respect, your heading betrays
the unanalytical nature of your article. You used the smear
expression “Far-Right” which is intended to obscure rather than to highlight
actual policy positions. You then claimed a “revival” despite the
fact that for several decades now there has not really been any patriotic or
nationalist challenge to the British Political Establishment Lib/Lab/Con which
has dominated “British” politics since the Second World War.

You rightly discuss the likely
consequences of the Conservative Party’s destruction of its own creditability
over Brexit as either competent or patrioticor honest. It is also
true that, if Corbyn’s Labour was to be given a chance at government, Labour
would prove to be internationalist, anti-patriotic, multi-culturalist and
pro-immigration. This is virtually a checklist of the very things
that English blue collar workers most despise. Such a
Labour Government would be very likely to complete the divorce between the
traditional “white working class” and Labour – a path which has already been
trod by almost all of Labour's sister parties in Western Europe!

The anomaly of the UK State is that
it is a unique, unfair, unequal and illogical mishmash of nations. This
constitutional anomaly has to be sorted out before England, Scotland, Wales and
Ireland can become fully normal modern democratic nation states.

If in the process of sorting this
out our politics can shed our grandiose “Legacy Parties” and replace them with
a modern party structure where policies chime with the various blocks of
ideological opinion rather than cut across them - as our current ones do – then
so much the better. Whether that amounts to “fertile ground for
xenophobic insurgents” well that is – “hard to know”! I will leave you to
resolve your own loaded question!

Yours sincerely

Robin Tilbrook

Here is Mr Elliott’s article

Tory
turmoil could lead to a far‑right revival

Leave voters’ sense of betrayal over
Brexit and fear of immigration create the perfect conditions for a new
protest party

Our views on race, immigration and
Brexit are full of contradictions. But taken together, this jumble of
prejudices and ideas is about to change the shape of British politics.

The return to dominance of the two
main parties, which saw Labour and the Conservatives share around 80 per cent
of the vote, was one of the most surprising consequences of the referendum two
years ago.

It left many in the centre ground
pining for a new party. But it now seems likely that it’s on the right, rather
than on the middle ground, that a new force will appear.

In three recent polls, Ukip has seen
an uptick at the expense of the Conservatives. It could be the first sign of
the governing party’s electoral coalition unravelling as voters react
negatively to Theresa May’s Brexit compromise agreed at Chequers.

Although Ukip is the current
beneficiary, the moribund party riven by factionalism looks no more able to
revive itself than the Liberal Democrats. Prepare for a new organisation
entirely.

At first sight, immigration doesn’t
appear to be a factor in the discontent felt by voters. The number of Britons
identifying immigration as the most important issue has declined steeply since
2016, while the number identifying Brexit has risen on a similarly striking
gradient. But taken together, concern about immigration and the delivery of
Brexit mark those who feel disenfranchised by the Westminster establishment,
and explain the outrage felt by some voters towards Mrs May’s Chequers plan. It
is an uncomfortable truth that just over a quarter of respondents in a recent
British Social Attitudes survey said they were “very” or a “little”
prejudiced towards people of other races.

Brexiteers react with fury to any
suggestion that race played a part in the vote to leave the EU. They are also
the first to suggest that a betrayal of the referendum result will unleash an
ugly populist backlash.

Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP for Mid
Bedfordshire, is the latest to sound the alarm. “The Chequers deal has
disenfranchised voters,” she tweeted this week. “People tell me . . . that it
was the ‘last straw’ and if a charismatic figure stood heading a new party they
would vote for him/her. Sounds like we could be heading for our very own
Trump/Macron/Robinson.”

She was criticised for appearing to
treat Tommy Robinson, former leader of the far-right, anti-Muslim English
Defence League, as a mainstream politician. Robinson was jailed in May for contempt of court and his
appeal against his sentence is due to be heard today. As Ms Dorries later made
clear, her tweet was a warning, not an endorsement.

But Robinson’s anti-migrant creed
has no shortage of high-profile supporters. Here is Donald Trump, speaking alongside Theresa May after their Chequers summit
last week, on the damage the president believes migration is doing to the
cultural fabric of Europe: “I just think it’s changing the culture. I think
it’s a very negative thing for Europe. I think it’s very negative,” he said.

“And I know it’s politically not
necessarily correct to say that. But I’ll say it and I’ll say it loud. And I
think they better watch themselves because you are changing culture. You are
changing a lot of things. You’re changing security.”

Sam Brownback, the US ambassador for
international religious freedom, is reported to have warned Sir Kim Darroch,
Britain’s ambassador in Washington, that “if Britain did not treat [Tommy]
Robinson more sympathetically, the Trump administration might be compelled to
criticise Britain’s handling of the case”.

Mr Trump’s son, Donald Junior, has
tweeted support for Robinson. A US think-tank, Middle East Forum, helped to
organise a rally in support of him in London and sent a Republican Congressman,
Paul Gosar, to speak in his support.

Robinson is just one possible
candidate to lead whatever replaces Ukip as the repository of protest votes,
powered by alt-right cash. Generation Identity, an Austrian nationalist movement,
is hovering at the political fringe. With slickly produced YouTube videos
and clean-cut provocateurs, it is waiting to leap on any grievance in
Britain that can serve its narrative of an apocalyptic clash of civilisations.

It is worth imagining what British
politics will be like if Mrs May does, after all, squeeze a version of her
Chequers compromise through Brussels. For most of the period between March 29,
2019, when we formally leave the union, and the next general election in 2022,
Britain will be paying its full dues to an organisation over which it has no
control. What’s more, every politician other than Mrs May will have a vested
interest in stoking discontent over the terms of our departure. It is probable
that she won’t even be in No 10 to defend it four years from now.

If this isn’t fertile ground for
xenophobic insurgents, it’s hard to know what is. For the Tories, it could get
even worse. Those now urging a delay in our departure next March are ignoring
one large obstacle. If we are still in the EU, Britain must take part in
elections to the European parliament next May. These polls are already causing
great anxiety in Brussels, where the Commission fears they could return a
majority of Eurosceptic MEPs from across the member states, with fatal
consequences for the federalist dream.

Senior ministers say that Brussels
will find a way to refuse any request to extend our negotiating period because
it fears that Britain’s participation in the Euro-election would only inflame
the Continental populist revolt.

Just as likely, they know that the
Conservative Party would suffer an almighty drubbing in such a poll because it
would be outflanked on the right by a populist nationalist party offering a
“real Brexit”. That day of reckoning may simply be postponed until the next
general election. By then, Labour may find itself in a corresponding bind to
the Tories, if a new centrist party ever gets its act together.

The outcome of that election will be
determined by which of the two main parties suffers most from the unravelling
of forces responsible for their current dominance.

2 comments:

This article contains three of the meaningless smear-terms used by left-wingers as an attempt to discredit anyone who dares to voice anti-establishment points of view. These are "xenophobic", "far-right" and "populist". Now, however voicing such opinions seems to qualify as "insurgency"! Stroll on!!Clive.W-s-M